Viruses, Volume 12, Issue 11

Over a hundred years of research on plant viruses has led to a detailed understanding of viral replication, movement, and host–virus interactions. The functions of vast viral genes have also been annotated. With an increased understanding of pl...

After a linear growth during September, the diffusion in Italy of SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19, has been growing exponentially since the end of that month with a doubling time approximately equal to one week [...]

Multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria are a major threat to public health. Bacteriophage endolysins (lysins) are a promising alternative treatment to traditional antibiotics. However, the lysins currently under development are still underestimated. Here...

Animal models and cell lines are invaluable for virology research and host–pathogen interaction studies. However, it is increasingly evident that these models are not sufficient to fully understand human viral diseases. With the advent of three...

Increased rates of Zika virus have been identified in economically deprived areas in Brazil at the population level; yet, the implications of the interaction between socioeconomic position and prenatal Zika virus exposure on adverse neurodevelopmenta...

Vector competence refers to the ability of a vector to acquire, maintain, and transmit a pathogen. Collecting mosquito saliva in medium-filled capillary tubes has become the standard for approximating arbovirus transmission. However, this method is t...

Several viral factors impact the natural course of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, the sensitivity of diagnostic tests, or treatment response to interferon-α and nucleos(t)ide analogues. These factors include the viral genotype and serotype...

Giant viruses are a group of eukaryotic double-stranded DNA viruses with large virion and genome size that challenged the traditional view of virus. Newly isolated strains and sequenced genomes in the last two decades have substantially advanced our...

Sea star wasting disease (SSWD) is a condition that has affected asteroids for over 120 years, yet mechanistic understanding of this wasting etiology remains elusive. We investigated temporal virome variation in two Pisaster ochraceus specimens that...

Chronic hepatitis D (CHD) is the most severe form of viral hepatitis, with rapid progression of liver-related diseases and high rates of development of hepatocellular carcinoma. The causative agent, hepatitis D virus (HDV), contains a small (approxim...

The Zika virus can induce a disruptive sequence in the fetal brain and is manifested mainly by microcephaly. Knowledge gaps still exist as to whether the virus can cause minor disorders that are perceived later on during the first years of life in ch...

Background: coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) causes severe illness including cytokine storms, but mortality among countries differs largely. In the present study, we investigated the association between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I, which...

During the last 25 years, swine vesicular disease (SVD) has occurred in Italy mostly sub-clinically. Therefore, regular testing of fecal samples from suspected holdings and high turnover premises was fundamental to identifying virus circulation and t...

Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) causes one of the most critical diseases in the porcine industry worldwide. In Brazil, the first description of the infection was reported in 1888, and the national recognition of the first free zone (FZ) occurred i...

Human rhinoviruses have been linked both to the susceptibility of asthma development and to the triggering of acute exacerbations. Given that the human airway epithelial cell is the primary site of human rhinovirus (HRV) infection and replication, th...

Serpentoviruses are an emerging group of nidoviruses known to cause respiratory disease in snakes and have been associated with disease in other non-avian reptile species (lizards and turtles). This study describes multiple episodes of respiratory di...

With the current widespread use of dolutegravir in low-income countries, the understanding of the impact of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI-) associated mutations on the efficacy of dolutegravir-containing antiretroviral therapy (ART...

An outbreak of winter dysentery, complicated by severe respiratory syndrome, occurred in January 2020 in a high production dairy cow herd located in a hilly area of the Calabria region. Of the 52 animals belonging to the farm, 5 (9.6%) died with seve...

Understanding the epidemiology of human norovirus infection in children within Ghana and the entire sub-Saharan African region, where future norovirus vaccines would have the greatest impact, is essential. We analyzed 1337 diarrheic stool samples col...

Streptococcus agalactiae (group B Streptococcus, GBS) represents a leading cause of invasive bacterial infections in newborns and is also responsible for diseases in older and immunocompromised adults. Prophages represent an important factor contribu...

The zinc finger proteins make up a significant part of the proteome and perform a huge variety of functions in the cell. The CCCH-type zinc finger proteins have gained attention due to their unusual ability to interact with RNA and thereby control di...

Viral vectors can generate high levels of recombinant protein expression providing the basis for modern vaccine development. A large number of different viral vector expression systems have been utilized for targeting viral surface proteins and tumor...

Previously, our group predicted commercially available Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs that can inhibit each step of the replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) using a deep learning-based drug-ta...

Adeno-Associated Virus is the leading vector for gene therapy. Although it is the vector for all in vivo gene therapies approved for clinical use by the US Food and Drug Administration, its biology is still not yet fully understood. It has been shown...

Widely available and easily accessible testing for COVID-19 is a cornerstone of pandemic containment strategies. Nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) are the currently accepted standard for sample collection but are limited by their need for collection devices...

Herpesvirus-encoded microRNAs (miRNAs) have been discovered in infected cells; however, lack of a suitable animal model has hampered functional analyses of viral miRNAs in vivo. Marek’s disease virus (MDV) (Gallid alphaherpesvirus 2, GaHV-2) ge...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death in Western countries. The incidence of PDAC has increased over the last 40 years and is projected to be the second leading cause of cancer death by 2030. Despi...

To provide insights into phage-host interactions during winemaking, we assessed whether phenolic compounds modulate the phage predation of Oenococcus oeni. Centrifugal partition chromatography was used to fractionate the phenolic compounds of a model...

In recent decades, chikungunya virus (CHIKV) has become geographically widespread. In 2004, the CHIKV East/Central/South African (ECSA) genotype moved from Africa to Indian ocean islands and India followed by a large epidemic in Southeast Asia. In 20...

The Twort-like myoviruses (Kayvirus genus) of S. aureus are promising agents for bacteriophage therapy due to a broad host range and high killing activity against clinical isolates. This work improves the current understanding of the phage infection...

Infections that are triggered by the accompanying immunosuppression in patients with burn wounds are very common regardless of age. Among burn patients, the most frequently diagnosed infections include the bacterial ones primarily caused by Pseudomon...

The Viruses Editorial Office wishes to notify its readers of corrections in [...]

In recent years, there has been growing evidence that certain types of honeybee viruses could be transmitted between different pollinators. Within a voluntary monitoring programme, 180 honeybee samples (Apis mellifera carnica) were collected from aff...

Delivering transgenes to human cells through transduction with viral vectors constitutes one of the most encouraging approaches in gene therapy. Lentivirus-derived vectors are among the most promising vectors for these approaches. When the genetic mo...

Site-specific evolutionary rate shifts are defined as protein sites, where the rate of substitution has changed dramatically across the phylogeny. With respect to a given clade, sites may either undergo a rate acceleration or a rate deceleration, ref...

The Betacoronavirus genus of mammal-infecting viruses includes three subgenera (Sarbecovirus, Embecovirus, and Merbecovirus), in which most known human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, cluster. Coronaviruses are prone to host shifts, with recombi...

The mechanism(s) by which neonates testing positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) acquire their infection has been largely unknown. Transmission of the etiological agent, SARS-CoV-2, from mother to infant has been suspected but has been dif...

Spillover of honey bee viruses have posed a significant threat to pollination services, triggering substantial effort in determining the host range of the viruses as an attempt to understand the transmission dynamics. Previous studies have reported i...

We investigated temporal trends of codon usage changes for different host species to determine their importance in Zika virus (ZIKV) evolution. Viral spillover resulting from the potential of codon adaptation to host genome was also assessed for the...

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) infections are well known to harbour quasispecies, due to the error-prone nature of the RNA polymerase. Quasispecies variants in the fusion cleavage site of the virus are known to significantly change its virulence. Howe...

The HML2 subfamily of HERV-K (henceforth HERV-K) represents the most recently endogenized retrovirus in the human genome. While the products of certain HERV-K genomic copies are expressed in normal tissues, they are upregulated in several pathologica...

This study evaluated the genetic and antigenic evolution of swine influenza A viruses (swIAV) of the two main enzootic H1 lineages, i.e., HA-1C (H1_av) and -1B (H1_hu), circulating in France between 2000 and 2018. SwIAV RNAs extracted from 1220 swine n...

Repurposing of approved drugs that target host functions also important for virus replication promises to overcome the shortage of antiviral therapeutics. Mostly, virus biology including initial screening of antivirals is studied in conventional mono...

How microbial populations interact influences the availability and flux of organic carbon in the ocean. Understanding how these interactions vary over broad spatial scales is therefore a fundamental aim of microbial oceanography. In this study, we as...

The 2014–2016 Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic in the Americas resulted in large deposits of next-generation sequencing data from clinical samples. This resource was mined to identify emerging mutations and trends in mutations as the outbreak progres...

The HIV-1 glycoprotein spike (gp120) is typically the first viral antigen that cells encounter before initiating immune responses, and is often the sole target in vaccine designs. Thus, characterizing the presence of cellular antigens on the surfaces...

Both substance use disorder and HIV infection continue to affect many individuals. Both have untoward effects on the brain, and the two conditions often co-exist. In the brain, macrophages and microglia are infectable by HIV, and these cells are also...

Studies of virus–host interactions in vitro may be hindered by biological characteristics of conventional monolayer cell cultures that differ from in vivo infection. Three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures show more in vivo-like characteristics an...

Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) is a contagious viral (PRRSV) disease in pigs characterized by poor reproductive health, increased mortality, and reductions in growth rates. PRRSV is known to implement immuno-antagonistic mechani...

Astroviruses, isolated from numerous avian and mammalian species including humans, are commonly associated with enteritis and encephalitis. Two astroviruses have previously been identified in cats, and while definitive evidence is lacking, an associa...